


The Scraps in the Shatter

by JazzhandsMcLeg



Series: Amara "One-Punch" Jones [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Game: Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals, Gen, and I'm sad about it :(, featuring my Guardian and her Ghost, it's Season of Arrivals...we all know what's up, no major character death per the tags but discussions of impending minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26842213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzhandsMcLeg/pseuds/JazzhandsMcLeg
Summary: Arrivals necessitate departures. Two old friends take some time to process this.
Relationships: Devrim Kay & Original Character(s), Female Guardian & Ghost (Destiny)
Series: Amara "One-Punch" Jones [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832206
Kudos: 5





	The Scraps in the Shatter

The end of another slow day in the EDZ. Devrim had been up—more specifically, up here—with the crows, climbing the path to the spire at just after seven hundred hours with a thermos of hot tea in each hand and his sniper slung over his back, but his diligence had borne as little fruit today as it had every other day for the last several months. There was almost no sign of Fallen or Cabal, and only a handful of Guardian visitors. They’d come mid-morning, two Hunters together and a Warlock alone, and since then it had been quiet enough that he’d felt comfortable tucking himself into the northeast corner of the steeple for a catnap shortly after lunch.

He understood, of course—both his boredom and the reason for it. They’d begun preparations for the arrival of the Pyramid ships, those heralds of the Darkness, some months ago. Now that they were here...the Vanguard’s attention would naturally be focused on those outposts that had also captured the attention of the Darkness. But it was still worthwhile to have people stationed in those areas where the Pyramids were not. There they could keep an eye on things, maintain an official City presence for the benefit of any passing Guardians, and, perhaps most importantly, do as much supporting paperwork as humanly possible.

He was a patient, deliberate man. Someone in his position had to be. But hours of uninterrupted logistics paperwork could eat through anyone’s reserves, and so he had mostly set it aside in favor of enjoying the crisp, blustery autumn weather when something caught his ear: footsteps, sounding their way across the cracked tiles of the sanctuary below him. Someone from the City, certainly. A Titan, most likely. Devrim leaned his rifle in the corner and turned away from the window.

“Hello, Guardian!” he called down. “A fine day, isn’t it?”

There was no answer, which wasn’t necessarily unusual—but no Guardian floated lightly into view, either, and that was. Devrim hesitated, then came to crouch on the edge of his platform, searching for his visitor and any signs of trouble.

Down in the sanctuary, a familiar helmet stared at the first step of the pathway that led to his station—a simple climb up a series of crumbling pavers—as if it had never seen it before. 

_“Amara?_ What’s wrong?”

Still no reply. She only looked up at him with a degree of helplessness even the featureless visor couldn’t obscure.

Devrim frowned down at her, mind racing. He’d had routine communications with the City all day; nothing could have happened there. As for Amara herself, he couldn’t see any injuries on her, but even if there had been, her Ghost would have taken care of them—

He tensed as a possibility presented itself. Her Ghost—

But just then the little construct himself shimmered into existence, hovering for a moment in front of his Guardian before floating backwards up the ramp toward Devrim’s perch.

“Come on, Guardian,” he said. His robotic voice was encouraging, but worry still audibly leaked through. A blue eye blinked up at him for a moment before turning back to its charge. “You can do it.”

“Come on, Guardian,” Devrim echoed. “Up you come. We’ll put some tea in you, it’s the perfect thing for a day like today. Don’t you agree, Ghost?”

“Well, I couldn’t really say, but it does smell nice,” the Ghost answered, backing a little further up the ramp as his Guardian rallied herself with obvious effort and began to trudge forward. “You never put lemon in yours, though. I like the smell of lemons best.”

“I don’t put lemon in mine because I have good taste,” Devrim said primly, retreating to pour the latest round of his favorite tea into his thermoses.

“Ikora would disagree with you on that.”

“It’s been a long time since I shared a cup of tea with her. A pity; I’d hoped she’d changed her mind since our last meeting.”

Between the two of them and a little light banter, they got Amara all the way up to the steeple, where Devrim immediately pressed a thermos into her hands and pointed to the rickety old desk chair he’d pulled out from its berth.

“Now have a seat and drink that,” he said kindly, “and tell me what’s wrong.”

Amara sank down onto the floor instead, holding her tea in one gauntleted hand as she used the other to pull her helmet from her head. Devrim, settling into a crouch with his own thermos, stopped and stared.

Amara Jones, the hero of the Red War and a dozen equally-fabled campaigns besides, looked absolutely _terrible._ Her periwinkle skin was grey and clammy-looking; her normally-bright blue eyes were dim and shadowed. Her brows were drawn and her mouth was pressed into a thin line. Her armor made it hard to tell, but he thought she seemed...folded in on herself, as though she expected an ambush or protected a grave wound.

Devrim had never seen her quite like this. Not during the Red War, not after Cayde’s death, not when the first Pyramid had been uncovered on the Moon. A chill prickled down his spine despite the warmth of his tea.

“Guardian—what _happened?”_

Amara turned her drink in her hands, not looking at him. It was her Ghost who answered, his own demeanor now unmistakably downcast.

“We’ve been all over the solar system today,” he explained. Without brighter tones to hide it, the worry in his voice stood out more than ever. “To the outposts on Io, Titan, Mercury, Mars. The Darkness is coming too close, pressing too hard—Commander Zavala asked us to help everyone evacuate this morning. But only Ana’s coming back to the Tower. The rest are...staying behind.”

Devrim felt the blood drain from his own face at the news; for a moment, it was difficult to breathe. “Staying behind?” he repeated. “Light around us, why?”

That single blue eye blinked at him again. “They want to protect us from what’s coming. Only Ana can bring her fight with her to the Tower.”

“That’s not what I have a problem with,” Amara said quietly.

It had been years since Devrim had heard her voice, but he did his best to hide his surprise. “Oh?”

She shook her head, clutching her thermos. “I’d be a hypocrite if I did. And I’m trying to be better about that.”

Devrim digested this statement, then set it aside. “Is it similar to Cayde?” he asked gently.

A pause, then another shake of the head. “I don’t think so. I’ve learned some things since then.”

He nodded, and waited. Her Ghost shifted closer. When Amara spoke again, it was in the tight, wavering tones of someone struggling desperately to hold back tears.

“Vance, Asher, Sloane—they all sent me on missions,” she choked out, “and when I told them what I’d learned—they knew, and it was like it all went out of them. The fight. The, the _conflict._ I could see it go. So they’re doing what they think is right, and they should. I couldn't ask them to do anything less. But they—they’re still here, still preparing. Sloane has this suit to go over, and Asher has experiments to finish...and in the meantime there’s supplies to take back to the Tower, and errands to run, and—and so they still want me to—” 

The Ghost disappeared. Amara broke off to breathe shakily for a few seconds, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Devrim set aside his thermos with a frown, but she rallied.

“They still need me to help,” she said miserably once her breath and her tears were back under control. “They need me to find things and ferry messages for them like I’ve always done. Like things are still the same. It was like it all went out of them,” she repeated, and her voice hitched again. “They’ve already started to go where the rest of us can’t. And I don’t know how to go back to them, knowing that, and just—just pretend everything’s all right. That it’s just another day of housekeeping and errands. I can’t be there for them when they leave. And I don’t know if I can be there for them now. Especially not when I’m—” She gestured at her pale, pained face. “And I don’t know what to _do.”_

“Ah.” Devrim sighed. “Do you _want_ to see them again, before they go?”

“Of course!”

“Then your love is stronger than your grief. That’s all you need. I have faith you’ll find a way from there.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she whispered, mustering a wobbly parody of a smile for him. “The grief is pretty strong. And they don’t need to deal with that right now, on top of everything else.”

“Well, I’m not sure if I agree,” Devrim said thoughtfully, “but if you think so, then perhaps it would be best to work through some of it in advance? It’s only healthy to let these things out sometimes, you know.”

Amara lowered her gaze to the floor and nodded, but her posture was so stiff and her breath so shallow she might almost have been a statue. He sighed again.

“Dear girl. Here.”

He stood and held out one hand; Amara set down her tea and took it with trembling fingers. Devrim pulled her—first to her feet and then, gently but firmly, into his arms. It took a moment, but once she realized what was happening she pressed her face into his shoulder and returned his embrace with a level of diffidence that seemed odd until he realized she was being mindful of her strength. 

“It’s all right,” he said, keeping his voice light. He squeezed Amara’s shoulders reassuringly, as he would have done Suraya’s. “I’m not so easily shattered.”

Her answering laugh was a little hysterical, but she was polite enough not to voice her disagreement. Instead, she took him at his word, her grip tightening incrementally until it nearly matched his. He rubbed a thumb in slow circles over her unarmored bicep.

“There now. It’s all right. It’s all right, Amara.”

They stood that way for a few minutes, Amara’s fuzzy, prickly crown tucked awkwardly up against his jaw as hot tears began to leak into his jacket. Outside, the light came and went. A gust of wind buffeted the steeple, making the wooden slats in the window creak briefly.

“My grandfather died of cancer when I was only just old enough to understand what was happening. It took eight months,” Devrim said at last. “My mother died the same way, twenty years later. And—it’s not common, but sometimes militia members do find it necessary to make these sorts of sacrifices. As someone still standing here...to know what’s coming, and yet to be unable to do anything but wait and watch... I’m sorry, Amara. I’m afraid it never really gets any easier. Even when it’s someone’s choice. Perhaps especially then. Love demands a terrible price from us all in the end, those who go and those who stay alike. The strength to pay comes from love, too, but I know it still hurts.”

Amara shuddered at his words. Her voice was muffled by his jacket, but the depths of emotion it held could not be hidden so easily. “How did it ever come to this?”

For a moment Devrim’s eyes were hot. He blinked the sensation away, then cleared his throat. “I can’t say I know the answer to that one. I’m so sorry, Amara.”

He thought back to the Red War. It had been a desperate, terrible time, but out of their fear and their heartbreak they had formed a...a cohort, of sorts. A sentient AI in her centuries-old prison; an old man with a good rifle; an acerbic scientist; a woman forged of steel. He’d met Sloane face-to-face exactly once, and Asher and Failsafe not at all, but that meant next to nothing compared to their years of radio chatter and collaboration. Vance and Ana had been later additions to their outriders’ group, their bonds forged not in fire but through a more traditional sort of comradery—but they were no less dear to him for that, as the others were no less dear to him for their many differences. He’d lost track of the arcane conversations he’d overheard between various combinations of Ana, Failsafe, and Asher as they navigated the narrow areas where their work and interests overlapped, or the number of times he’d listened to Sloane using the famous ‘dumb Titan’ act to fluster Vance’s philosophical arguments with every appearance of enjoyment. He’d lost track of what they’d sacrificed for each other, given to or accepted from one another, or simply shared with one another. 

The price of love, indeed.

A weight had settled onto his shoulders when the Guardian had climbed into the steeple looking like death warmed over and given him the terrible news. Now he recognized it for what it was.

His eyes burned again, this time too strongly for Devrim to blink back his own tears. He closed his eyes and let them come.

“When you go to see them again,” he said, “will you take an old man with you? I have my own farewells to make.”

Another moment of silence—and then, at last, it happened. Standing so closely to her, he could feel the instant it all went out of Amara: the fight, perhaps, or the conflict. She gave a massive sigh; her arms fell. Devrim let her go, and she backed out of the embrace.

“Amara?”

She looked at him in the shifting afternoon light as, outside, clouds obscured and revealed the early autumn sun. She was still crying a little, and the smile she gave him was tremulous and pained. But it was a real smile nonetheless, and a sad sort of peace had loosened the stiff set of her posture, the tight muscles of her face. Looking at her, Devrim wondered if this was at all similar to what she’d described seeing when she’d spoken to those who had decided to stay: the demeanor of a person who had finally come to understand and accept the repercussions of the path they’d chosen to follow. The thought gave him an unexpected pang.

“When I go to see them again,” Amara repeated, and sniffled, and nodded. “Yes. I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Imogen Heap's [Wait It Out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5MGb0imnkM). Thanks for reading!


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